Tag: google

France’s data privacy watchdog has fined Google 50 million euros ($57 million), the first penalty for a U.S. tech giant under new European data privacy rules that took effect last year. The National Data Protection Commission said Monday it fined the U.S. internet giant for “lack of transparency, inadequate information and lack of valid consent” regarding ad personalization for users. The commission said users were “not sufficiently informed” about what they were agreeing to. It’s the biggest re

France’s data privacy watchdog has fined Google 50 million euros ($57 million), the first penalty for a U.S. tech giant under new European data privacy rules that took effect last year.

The National Data Protection Commission said Monday it fined the U.S. internet giant for “lack of transparency, inadequate information and lack of valid consent” regarding ad personalization for users.

The commission said users were “not sufficiently informed” about what they were agreeing to.

It’s the biggest regulatory enforcement action since the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, came into force in May.

Google said in a statement it’s “deeply committed” to transparency and user control as well GDPR consent requirements and is deciding “our next steps.”

In all corners of the world, if you’re looking to do an internet search, chances are high that Google is your go-to. The company has cornered the search market, capturing roughly 90% of the global market share. But Google’s domination hasn’t extended everywhere, and Russia is one of the few countries where it lags behind. Here, 55% of the market belongs to the homegrown company Yandex. Like Google, Yandex is so much more than a search engine.

In all corners of the world, if you’re looking to do an internet search, chances are high that Google is your go-to.

The company has cornered the search market, capturing roughly 90% of the global market share. But Google’s domination hasn’t extended everywhere, and Russia is one of the few countries where it lags behind. Here, 55% of the market belongs to the homegrown company Yandex.

Like Google, Yandex is so much more than a search engine. It offers email, cloud, and online payment services, streaming music, news aggregatio, and live traffic maps. Yandex.Taxi merged with Uber last year, and it is testing self-driving cars.

Basically, Yandex sure sounds a lot like Google. So why do the majority of Russia’s 144.5 million citizens actually prefer it?

Fossil is selling $40 million of smartwatch technology to Google, the company announced Thursday. Shares of Fossil jumped about 8 percent on the news. Fossil is one of the primary brands that continues to build smartwatches that run Google’s Wear OS software, which competes with the Apple Watch but has struggled to gain mass adoption among consumers. But Fossil said that smartwatches are its fastest-growing category. Fossil said the transaction is expected to close in January.

Fossil is selling $40 million of smartwatch technology to Google, the company announced Thursday.

Shares of Fossil jumped about 8 percent on the news.

Fossil is one of the primary brands that continues to build smartwatches that run Google’s Wear OS software, which competes with the Apple Watch but has struggled to gain mass adoption among consumers. But Fossil said that smartwatches are its fastest-growing category.

“The addition of Fossil Group’s technology and team to Google demonstrates our commitment to the wearables industry by enabling a diverse portfolio of smartwatches and supporting the ever-evolving needs of the vitality-seeking, on-the-go consumer,” said Stacey Burr, vice president of product management, Wear OS by Google.

Vic Gundotra has stepped down from his role as CEO of AliveCor for personal reasons, the executive told CNBC. The band tucks neatly into an Apple Watch. But AliveCor recently experienced a “record high in sales,” Gundotra told CNBC, as well as “best month and best quarter” in its history. Gundotra told CNBC in September that Apple raised the profile of atrial fibrillation, which many people had never heard of before the company talked about it on stage. Gundotra joined AliveCor after rising thro

Vic Gundotra has stepped down from his role as CEO of AliveCor for personal reasons, the executive told CNBC.

“I’m leaving the company in a position of strength,” he said.

“We all love Vic,” said David Albert, the company’s founder and chief medical officer. “We sold hundreds of thousands of devices and continue to gain more traction, so all I can say is he did a great job.”

AliveCor is best known for its Kardia watch band, which includes a tiny electrocardiogram (“ECG”) sensor to look for a condition known as atrial fibrillation, a leading cause of strokes. The band tucks neatly into an Apple Watch.

In December, Apple announced it had incorporated its own electrocardiogram into the watch, which many purported would be a big threat to AliveCor. But AliveCor recently experienced a “record high in sales,” Gundotra told CNBC, as well as “best month and best quarter” in its history. Gundotra said revenue doubled each year since 2015, when he joined as CEO.

In September, it announced that it would expand beyond that to new areas that leverage artificial intelligence in medicine, including a new test to diagnose high potassium levels without requiring any blood.

Gundotra told CNBC in September that Apple raised the profile of atrial fibrillation, which many people had never heard of before the company talked about it on stage.

“I’m thrilled,” Gundotra said then. “We have a lot less explaining to do.”

Gundotra joined AliveCor after rising through the ranks of Google where he served as a senior vice president in charge of Google+, the company’s social network, as well as other products.

Gundotra has been public about the fact that his wife is sick with cancer. He will remain on the board, which is expected to announce a replacement from within AliveCor’s ranks in the coming weeks. The company has raised more than $40 million from investors including Qualcomm and the Mayo Clinic.

Google is raising prices for the basic and business versions of its G Suite productivity apps, like Gmail and Docs, for the first time. The 20 percent price increase comes soon after the appointment of Thomas Kurian, a former Oracle executive, as the head of Google’s Cloud division. Pricing for Google’s Enterprise Edition will remain the same and Google will continue to offer free accounts for non-business users. In a blog post introducing the new pricing Google says that over the last ten years

Google is raising prices for the basic and business versions of its G Suite productivity apps, like Gmail and Docs, for the first time.

The 20 percent price increase comes soon after the appointment of Thomas Kurian, a former Oracle executive, as the head of Google’s Cloud division. While the news that Kurian would replace former CEO Diane Greene was announced last November, he only formally took on the role this year.

The price bumps — from $5 to $6 per user / month for G Suite’s Basic Edition plan and from $10 to $12 per user / month for its Business Edition tier — will take effect on April 2 and bring Google’s product costs closer to those of rival suite Microsoft Office 365. (The features of the various pricing tiers from Google and Microsoft aren’t directly comparable. The differences between Google’s basic and business tiers involve storage space, among other features.) Pricing for Google’s Enterprise Edition will remain the same and Google will continue to offer free accounts for non-business users.

In a blog post introducing the new pricing Google says that over the last ten years, G Suite has grown to provide more products.

“The one thing that hasn’t changed over this time is price,” the post says.

While Google doesn’t break out its cloud market share or how much the business makes, it said in February 2018 that the cloud unit overall had passed $1 billion in revenue per quarter. Even with that disclosure, it’s unclear how much revenue is coming from G Suite versus Google’s Cloud Platform. Google’s public cloud marketshare is widely seen as lagging behind both Amazon and Microsoft’s.

In Alphabet’s Q3 earnings, it reported $4.64 billion in its “other revenues” category, which includes its cloud business as well as app store revenue and hardware sales. It will next report earnings on February 4.

Google says that the price changes will not impact current contracts or renewals made before April 2.

“The Directors’ wrongful conduct allowed the illegal conduct to proliferate and continue,” the suit reads. “As such, members of Alphabet’s Board were knowing and direct enablers of the sexual harassment and discrimination.” And if you get caught, Google would keep it quiet, let you resign, and pay you millions of dollars in severance,” the suit reads. In this way, Alphabet and the Board were able to maintain optics and superficial compliance with its code of conduct, internal rules, and laws reg

The new lawsuit, filed in California’s San Mateo County, asserts claims for breach of fiduciary duty, abuse of control, unjust enrichment, and waste of corporate assets. The attorneys say the lawsuit is the result of “an extensive original investigation into non-public evidence” and produced copies of internal Google minutes from board of directors meetings.

“The Directors’ wrongful conduct allowed the illegal conduct to proliferate and continue,” the suit reads. “As such, members of Alphabet’s Board were knowing and direct enablers of the sexual harassment and discrimination.”

The suit also accuses board members of employing contradictory standards:

“If you were a high‐level male executive at Google responsible for generating millions of dollars in revenue, Google would let you engage in sexual harassment. And if you get caught, Google would keep it quiet, let you resign, and pay you millions of dollars in severance,” the suit reads. “On the other hand, if you were a low‐level employee at Google and were accused of sexual harassment or discrimination, you would be fired for cause with no severance benefits. In this way, Alphabet and the Board were able to maintain optics and superficial compliance with its code of conduct, internal rules, and laws regarding sexual harassment. By appearing to take decisive action against a significant number of low‐level employees, and by concealing the blatant and widespread sexual harassment by senior Google executives, the Board avoided a much bigger scandal.”

In late October, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees that Google had fired 48 employees for sexual misconduct over the past two years.

The shareholder plaintiff, James Martin, has held Alphabet stock since October 2009.

Soon after the original complaint, another similar suit was filed in San Mateo County on behalf of two additional stockholders, which also alleges that the board breached its fiduciary duty and had a “culture of concealment” around sexual misconduct, as well as a bug in the Google Plus social network.

Google doesn’t need to guarantee the “right to be forgotten” to users outside of the European Union, an advisor to the EU’s top court said Thursday. The written opinion by an advocate general in the European Court of Justice is an important step in the question of how much tech companies like Google must apply Europe’s strict privacy laws to operations in other parts of the world. For example, an individual can ask Google to remove links including personal contact information. Since 2014, Google

Google doesn’t need to guarantee the “right to be forgotten” to users outside of the European Union, an advisor to the EU’s top court said Thursday.

The written opinion by an advocate general in the European Court of Justice is an important step in the question of how much tech companies like Google must apply Europe’s strict privacy laws to operations in other parts of the world.

The “right to be forgotten” is a part of an EU law established in 2014 that requires search engines to delete personal information about users if it’s deemed irrelevant or excessive.

For example, an individual can ask Google to remove links including personal contact information. The decision to remove a link is weighed against factors such as the individual’s role in public life. Since 2014, Google has received nearly 3 million requests to “delist” web addresses from users across Europe.

In a written opinion on Thursday, Advocate General Maciej Szpunar said he is “not in favor of giving the provisions of EU law such a broad interpretation that they would have effects beyond the borders of the 28 Member States.”

“The opinion contains a clear recommendation that the right to remove search results from Google should not have global effect,” said Richard Cumbley, the partner and global head of technology at London-based law firm Linklaters, in an email to CNBC.

“There are a number of good reasons for this, including the risk other states would also try and suppress search results on a global basis.”

The company plans to lease office space from what is now a mall in West Los Angeles, according to the Journal. The move is the latest office expansion for Google, which just last month announced a $1 billion investment in a new office in New York City. The space at Westside Pavilion will reportedly be redeveloped into a 584,000 square-foot campus, according to the Journal, citing property owners Hudson Pacific Properties and Macerich. Google’s 14-year lease would begin after construction is comp

Google is expanding in L.A., the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The company plans to lease office space from what is now a mall in West Los Angeles, according to the Journal.

The move is the latest office expansion for Google, which just last month announced a $1 billion investment in a new office in New York City. Amazon and Apple have also been expanding their presence outside of the tech hubs of Silicon Valley and Seattle, with Amazon selecting New York City and Northern Viriginia. as the dual-sites of its new “headquarters” and Apple announcing a new campus in Austin.

The space at Westside Pavilion will reportedly be redeveloped into a 584,000 square-foot campus, according to the Journal, citing property owners Hudson Pacific Properties and Macerich. Google’s 14-year lease would begin after construction is completed on the “One Westside” construction, scheduled to end in 2022.

Google will take over the entire office part of the project, while Hudson Pacific and Macerich will still own and operate a portion of the mall connected to the office area by the bridge, according to the Journal.

Google was not immediately available to comment.

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Watch: Google plans to pour more than $1 billion into new Manhattan headquarters

Apple posted a huge advertisement on the side of a hotel that overlooks the Las Vegas Convention Center, where rivals Google and Amazon are set to have a huge presence at this year’s CES. The message, which takes up about 13 floors of building, says : “What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone” with the URL to Apple’s privacy website. While Apple’s ad focuses specifically on phones, it’s really a broader message about the companies it competes with in multiple industries. Amazon and Goog

Apple posted a huge advertisement on the side of a hotel that overlooks the Las Vegas Convention Center, where rivals Google and Amazon are set to have a huge presence at this year’s CES.

The message, which takes up about 13 floors of building, says : “What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone” with the URL to Apple’s privacy website.

While Apple’s ad focuses specifically on phones, it’s really a broader message about the companies it competes with in multiple industries.

Apple’s message is clear: we’re not trying to sell your data, while Amazon and Google use your data — if sometimes anonymously — to try to sell you stuff.

Amazon and Google are expected to have a lot to show at CES. Partners of both companies, from TV to appliance makers, will unveil gadgets with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant built-in. Google has also said it tripled the size of its presence at CES from last year.

Apple might also be playing defense, though. Its HomePod isn’t as popular as the Google Home or Amazon Echo. November data from research firm Canalys has Amazon and Google with 31.9 percent and 29.8 percent share of the smart speaker market, respectively, while Apple isn’t even included as a big player.

Dr. Stephen Klasko, the president of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and CEO of Jefferson Health, says that medical schools have the recruiting process all wrong. Klasko is pushing Thomas Jefferson along a different path, one that’s similarly being followed by Mount Sinai, Yale and Stanford. They’re all seeking ways to find candidates that may not be obvious targets for medical school by using techniques that are well known to tech companies. “We need to make medical students more hu

Dr. Stephen Klasko, the president of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and CEO of Jefferson Health, says that medical schools have the recruiting process all wrong.

In an age of advanced technology, they’re still choosing students who can reel off organic chemistry compounds, rather than screening for qualities like critical thinking, entrepreneurship and empathy. Once students arrive, they’re being asked to spend years on rote memorization.

It’s a system designed to “suck the creativity out of physicians,” Klasko said, while encouraging them to compete with each other, rather than collaborate.

Klasko is pushing Thomas Jefferson along a different path, one that’s similarly being followed by Mount Sinai, Yale and Stanford. They’re all seeking ways to find candidates that may not be obvious targets for medical school by using techniques that are well known to tech companies. Klasko’s son once interviewed for a job at Google, and “they didn’t want to see a transcript,” he said. Recruiters asked him a series of questions to see whether he could come up with creative solutions on the fly.

Klasko has worked with a firm called Teleos Leaders, which has clients ranging from Cisco to IBM, to develop a program to select medical students on the basis of their emotional intelligence.

“We need to make medical students more human,” Klasko said in an interview. “The way things are today is that you can be the most antisocial person in the room, but if we train you to pass a multiple choice test you can go and treat sick patients.”

Jefferson is tapping humanities departments, design universities and drama schools to convince young graduates to consider a career in medicine. It has a partnership with Princeton University that allows about a dozen Princeton undergraduates each year to take the minimum number of science courses and study any other subjects they wish before attending medical school at Jefferson.

It also has a program that trains students in design thinking under Bon Ku, an emergency room physician who was described by a local publication as “one of the coolest docs in Philadelphia.” Ku graduated with a degree in classics and was terrible at math.

FlexMed at New York’s Mount Sinai allows college sophomores in any major to apply for early acceptance. Students in humanities have proven to be just as successful as those with a science background, and they’re more likely to choose primary care or psychiatry as a specialty, which are both areas facing shortages. Other med schools like Yale and Stanford are offering art appreciation courses alongside traditional subjects like pathology and microbiology.